


Like a Drowned Man, a Fool and a Madman

by amycarey



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fluff, post 3b
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-12
Updated: 2014-05-12
Packaged: 2018-01-24 11:43:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1603916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amycarey/pseuds/amycarey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"It takes Emma about three days before the heady rush of emotion wears off and she remembers that Hook drives her insane. The first thing she does after telling him that it’s not going to work for her, not in the long term, is get in the bug and drive to Regina’s."</i>  </p><p>After the events at the diner, Emma visits Regina with the intention of getting drunk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Drowned Man, a Fool and a Madman

It takes Emma about three days before the heady rush of emotion wears off and she remembers that Hook drives her fucking insane. The first thing she does after telling him that it’s not going to work for her, not in the long term, is get in the bug and drive to Regina’s. It’s late, the stars just barely blinking into the sky, and all of the lights at 108 Mifflin Street, except for the light in Regina’s study, are off.

 

“She didn’t tell me her name,” she says, when Regina answers the door, glass of red, blood-like wine in one hand. “I’m sorry.”

 

Regina attempts a sneer but she’s got to be on to at least her third glass of wine and it comes off sort of sloppy. “Haven’t you watched any time travel movies, Ms Swan?” she asks. “Step on a butterfly, crash a Delorean.” Anyone else and Emma would say that she was coping remarkably well with the ill-timed arrival of Robin’s dead wife, but Emma’s not sheriff because she misses the little details. Regina’s shirt is untucked from her pencil skirt at the front. Her eyeliner is drawn harder and thicker than usual, giving her face a harsh appearance. Thin strands of hair catch the light from the porch light as they fuzz around her head, where they would normally be smoothed down.

 

“I don’t think that’s the saying,” Emma says, frowning.

 

“What do you want, Ms Swan?” Regina sounds tired, voice husky and defeated.

 

“Do you have alcohol?” Emma asks. “Only Snow tipped all of ours out last week because the baby might get into it even though baby Neal can’t actually sit up by himself, let alone open a bottle of vodka and pour shots. I could really use a drink.”

 

“I believe your pirate is typically a reliable source of rum.”

 

“Yes,” Emma says. “Unfortunately, that would involve talking to him and given I just told him I don’t want to be in a relationship with him, he might actually throw the now probably empty hip flask at my head.”

 

“Well,” Regina says after a moment of surprised silence. “I suppose you had better come in.”

 

Regina returns to her study and Emma follows the sway of her hips. She gestures vaguely at the liquor cabinet and picks up her half empty glass of red wine. Emma finds the scotch and pours herself a generous glass. “I really am sorry,” she says.

 

Regina lets out a huff of air. “Water, bridge, all of that,” she says, waving a hand as though swatting an irritable fly. She’s a far cry from the evil queen Emma met briefly in the Enchanted Forest, though still with the ridiculous cleavage-baring tops. Some things never change. Emma wonders, as she drags her eyes from the swell of Regina’s breasts, if the idea of buttons just escapes her. “Where is my son while you’re trawling the town for alcohol?”

 

“Henry’s with my parents,” she says. “We really have to sort out some sort of custody arrangement now things are settled down.”

 

Regina just nods and returns to her wine. Emma notes the empty bottle on her desk, the second one uncorked and only half full.

 

Emma finishes her first glass and pours a second. Emboldened by the liquor, she asks, “how long had you known that guy anyway?”

 

“A month,” Regina says.

 

“Okay,” Emma says, nodding. “So, not to discount your grief or anything, but it could’ve been worse.”

 

“He was my soul mate,” Regina says, sniffing. She sounds rather like she’s trying to convince herself of this and Emma senses desperation in her voice.

 

“I don’t believe in those,” Emma says. “It’s bullshit that there’s one person out there for everyone. What if your soul mate dies young? Or they’re an asshole? Or they live in, like, Fiji?”

 

“Racist,” Regina says, wrinkling her nose.

 

“No,” Emma hastens to add. “Just the distance.” She pours another scotch, the alcohol sliding down her throat, pleasantly burning. God, Regina has the best booze cabinet. “So how do you know he’s your ‘soul mate’?” she asks, unable to help the scare quotes.

 

Regina swirls her glass. There’s a pink flush in her cheeks and she mumbles something.

 

“Didn’t catch that.”

 

“Pixie dust.”

 

Emma snorts. She can’t help herself. “Seriously? Pixie dust? Seriously?”

 

“Shut up,” Regina says, throwing a cushion at her. Emma’s scotch sloshes and she slurps at the side of the glass so it doesn’t drip and stain the carpet. Regina rolls her eyes at this display. “Sophisticated as always, Ms Swan.”

 

“But it’s just stupid,” Emma says. “What if you didn’t like the guy?”

 

“One doesn’t dislike one’s soul mate,” Regina says though, again, there’s a flush in her cheeks and Emma thinks she can take a guess at why.

 

“You totally hated him in the year of lost memories,” Emma says, triumphant. “You thought he was a weird, tree-hugging freak.” She may be letting her own opinions of Robin into her speech. She never exactly warmed to the guy, needlessly interrupting family conversations.

 

“Shall I call Hook to pick you up?” Regina asks, acid in her voice, and Emma is immediately contrite.

 

“Sorry.”

 

They drink in silence. Emma watches the flicker of the flames in the fire, mind wandering. She thinks about the evil queen in the Enchanted Forest, the woman who imprisoned her and gleefully attempted to murder her mother, the woman who insisted on being called ‘your majesty’. The woman sitting across from her, legs crossed and delicately drinking wine, is not that woman. Emma’s assumed this for a while, but now she has proof.

 

“If I might ask,” Regina says, over-annunciating her words, which only goes further in proving that she is absolutely wasted. “Why did you break it off with the pirate?”

 

Emma downs her drink. “Neal said something to me once about how home is the place you miss when you’re not there. I took some time to think about what I would miss today.”

 

“And Hook wasn’t part of it? Of course he wasn’t,” Regina says. “He never gives you a chance to miss him.” It’s true; he’s around all the time and that’s great when she wants a buddy to flirt with but in a fledgling relationship it spelled disaster after about a day. Emma likes her space.

 

“It was more about what _was_ a part of home,” Emma says. There’s a reason she’d come to Regina’s house tonight, a reason beyond making sure she hadn’t reverted to full Evil Queen mode.

 

Regina doesn’t ask though. She watches the flames and adds another log to the fire. Then, she says, “I didn’t love him.”

 

“Robin?”

 

“No,” she says. “But there was the possibility of love and that’s a potent thing.”

 

“I know,” Emma says. She drains her glass. Outside, the sky is black and clear and Emma can feel her fingers tingling, going numb as they always do when she drinks too much. Regina sits, legs crossed, conjuring fireballs and extinguishing them, as one might squeeze a stress ball or stroke a cat.

 

“Just so you’re not tempted,” Emma says, “I got my magic back so I can probably deflect those.”

 

“Probably?” Regina asks and a wicked smile spreads across her face, the first smile Emma’s seen since she arrived. A fireball soars lazily across the room at her and Emma barely shields it.

 

“Shit!” she exclaims. “You’re crazy, woman.”

 

“Oh please,” Regina scoffs. “I could’ve stopped it any time.”

 

“Can we make a no drinking and magicking rule? Like, if you’re too drunk to drive, you’re too drunk to use create fire with your emotions.”

 

“Fine,” Regina says.

 

They fall silent again.

 

“You haven’t just been drinking these past three days?” Emma asks.

 

“What do you take me for?” Regina asks. “Just at night. I miss…” She shivers. “My sleep hasn’t been the best since he left.”

 

Emma’s phone rings and she answers. “Hey Ma.” It’s Henry.

 

“Kid. How are you?” She attempts to inject as much enthusiasm into her voice but it’s possible she over-shoots because Henry sounds suspicious.

 

“Fine. Where are you?”

 

“I’m with your mother,” Emma says. “We’re just sorting some things, stuff. Things.” Her phone is snatched away from her. “Hey!”

 

“Henry, darling, Emma will be staying here tonight,” Regina says. “She is entirely too inebriated to go home.” There’s a pause. “Of course I haven’t been drinking.”

 

Emma snorts loudly and yells, “liar.” She hopes Henry heard.

 

“I will certainly tell her that alcohol causes liver damage and countless diseases.” Regina smiles, the smile reserved for Henry and, occasionally, before New York, Emma. “Come over tomorrow. I’ll make breakfast and we can talk.” She hangs up and hands Emma’s phone back. “My son says to tell you that baby Neal won’t stop crying and you owe him big time.”

 

“So,” Emma says, grinning. “I’m staying here tonight?”

 

“Mind out of the gutter, Ms Swan,” Regina says. “There are several guest bedrooms.”

 

The smile continues to play across Emma’s face though and Regina stokes the fire, pours herself another glass of wine, draining the bottle, and kicks off her heels. It’s like she’s shedding armour and Emma knows the worst has passed.

 

“You’ve missed stuff since you’ve been holed up in here,” Emma says. “Gold and Belle got married.”

 

“I still think he had something to do with my sister’s death,” Regina says, lip curling.

 

“We’ll investigate in the morning,” Emma says. “Swan and Mills, reunited at last. We could be a TV series. Like ‘Law and Order’, without the order. Or the law. Or the ‘dun dun’ noise.”

 

“You’re ridiculous,” Regina says but she’s starting to smile properly at last.

“You love it,” Emma says and then she’s silent because the flush has returned, the flush Emma sees whenever Regina talks about Robin. “Oh my God,” Emma says.

 

“What?”

 

“You _do_ love it,” Emma says.

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 

Emma sighs. “Me. This. Us.”

 

“You are making no sense,” Regina says. There’s panic in her voice and she’s speaking higher than usual. She stands. “Perhaps it’s time for bed?”

 

Emma stands too. They’re close, the closeness of former fights, of Regina getting in her face and Emma retaliating, but there’s a softness in Regina’s expression now, the sort of look Emma was starting to see before New York, the sort of look that made her hope, just a little bit. “It was you,” Emma says. “The thing I didn’t expect I would miss. You’re part of my home.”

 

And Regina kisses her. Her lips are chapped and she tastes of red wine and Emma hates red wine but she doesn’t hate this at all. She winds a hand through Regina’s hair, cups the other around her cheek.

 

They break apart. “This can’t be a rebound,” Regina says.

 

“We’ll take it slow. Snail’s pace. Dead snail’s pace if you want. ”

 

“Snail’s pace works,” Regina says, lips twitching into a smile, that smile, the ‘Henry and sometimes Emma’ smile. There's pain and desperation and anger behind it, but also hope, and Emma thinks her own beaming grin might just split her face in half. .

**Author's Note:**

> A little bit of post-finale word vomit. This was much more palatable than marking essays.
> 
> Title taken from 'Twelfth Night'. 
> 
> Also, OMG, I wrote something that isn't an AU. I feel like I'm actually properly fandoming now.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Like a Drowned Man, a Fool and a Madman by amycarey](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6005398) by [fire_juggler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fire_juggler/pseuds/fire_juggler)




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